


The Dreamworks Face

by TheElusiveOllie



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Acting, Developing Friendships, Gen, Nonbinary Chara and Frisk, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 21:15:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10999128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheElusiveOllie/pseuds/TheElusiveOllie
Summary: There's a world of similarity there, if only both parties were willing to look.





	The Dreamworks Face

**Author's Note:**

> For Vanessa, star that she is.
> 
> Can serve as a potential sequel to [Just Desserts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10170764), but can also stand on its own.

They’re a strange one, Frisk’s little...friend. Truthfully, it’s not as if Frisk was highly forthcoming or clear about the nature of their friendship, or how it is they came to know the child from the stories above, the one who arrived in a tumble of dust and pollen and departed in much the same fashion. They’re a peculiar fixture in Frisk’s life, quiet and reticent and ever-watchful. Overly selective in their speech, overly precise in their every action. He could name no other child capable of holding themself with that level of unbroken poise, chin lifted, back ramrod straight, held so still that one could think them dead.  
   
In appearance, they are Frisk’s twin in almost every sense but for the tint of their skin and their eyes; in demeanor, they are practically the opposite. Where Frisk is dark and warm, creases in the corners of their eyes from smiling, dimples on their cheeks from laughter, fingers grasping for hands or the folds of skirts or legs in that questing hunger for affection, Chara is the stark, grim opposite. For all the roundness of their face, the rosy flush to their cheeks, they seem locked in a perpetually unsmiling flatness, eyes wide and unblinking in a way that suggests a need for _vigilance_ , speculating quietly on the world around them without ever seeing fit to interfere.  
   
Mettaton would be lying if he claimed to understand them, even the smallest fraction. He tolerates them well enough, and they him. They do or say nothing that could be construed as hostile at family functions or events. Rather, they do nothing at all but watch, always, like some stony sentinel. It was unsettling for the first few times.  
   
Now it is normal. And in its normalcy, it loses some of its haunting effect.  
   
That’s not to say he’s not made an attempt, of course. He’s made plenty of token peace offerings, usually on Frisk’s quiet behest, and what sort of star would he be if he refused such a polite and genuine request from his favorite little co-performer?  
   
The first time ended in relative disaster. Mettaton had draped himself atop the other side of the couch they were occupying, one long, segmented tube of an arm thrown up along the top, and flashed one of the best, pearliest, most _winning_ of showman’s smiles.  
   
_“Well,_ darling,” said Mettaton in throaty invitation, “it seems we’ve a whole hour of the house to ourselves! What is it you’d like to do, then?”  
   
Chara had regarded him with what he would later pinpoint as a sort of disdainful bemusement, both unwilling and unable to discern what his intentions in that offer could possibly be and deciding that, ultimately, they could only be harmful in nature.  
   
“No,” said Chara.  
   
“No?” Mettaton arched one eyebrow, slowly, and Chara’s eyes narrowed, though they said...nothing. Electing to be bolstered by their silence rather than intimidated, Mettaton forged bravely onward: “I was curious, you see - it’s my general understand that humans enjoy treating themselves, on occasion. And there’s these simply _delightful_ things on the surface that I’ve heard some call _manicures_ \- ”  
   
Chara had stood at once, so rapidly that their oil slick veneer of control had slipped and run off their shoulders, evident in the tremble in their knees, in the wary gleam to their eyes as they’d backed away.  
   
“No,” they said again, firmer, and made their hasty retreat.  
   
The remainder of the hour had droned by without further event. Largely because Chara had proceeded to lock themself in their room and staunchly refuse to come out.  
   
So he’d made a rather sizable misstep, it was true. But there’s no reason not to try again, particularly as Frisk always looks - well, he hesitates to use the word _devastated_ , when someone doesn’t get along with Chara, but he imagines that, were someone to offer them a box full of kittens and then upend the box onto a filthy patch of snow rather than handing it over, they would be wearing a very similar sort of look to them.  
   
But that’s show business, isn’t it? One will inevitably encounter failure, and it is through failure that one learns how to please an audience. Not every joke will land and not every show will sell out; it is the job of the man behind the curtain to discern what coaxes an audience back to its collective seat.  
   
His audience, in this case, is a recalcitrant, laconic enigma of a child, of which he can learn nothing besides the importance they hold to Frisk and the fact that they find manicures to be, apparently, fundamentally abominable.  
   
Yet the unsmiling rigidity falls away, of this he is quite certain. It’s there, and he’s _seen_ it. Or rather, he’s seen the steely mask of the curved lips, the hard burn of coal-red eyes, the way they can sharpen a smile into the most potent weapon possible. And it occurs to him in a belated, electric pulse of revelation.  
   
Chara is so very, _very_ like Frisk, perhaps more than either child is willing to admit. Both excel at slotting a peaceable, palatable facade over their features in a spotless presentation. Frisk’s features fold to blankness, an unreadable expressionlessness, but Chara’s - they become a bright blaze of a smile, both pointed and poisonous, torquing joy into something dangerous. That takes a particular sort of deftness, a skill, to wordlessly polish their every look and action into something innately terrifying. Yet without a further trick to add to their arsenal, there is one fundamental flaw in their presentation.  
   
It gets _old_. Quite rapidly, in fact. One builds up a desensitization to even the most menacing of grins, himself included. As unsettling as the arch and press of a smile into the corners of their cheeks might be, just barely straining what should fit on a human child’s face, he’s witnessed it far too frequently to let that same thrill of terror metastasize in his SOUL.  
   
So when they counter Mettaton’s latest attempt at socialization with one such smile, he finds it marginally easier to lift his chin and sigh, unperturbed.  
   
“Really, dear, you ought to think of expanding your repertoire some,” he says, perhaps haughtier than is _strictly_ necessary.  
   
Again, their eyes darken, the corners of their mouth stiffening. From the quiet tensing of their shoulders, it’s plain that they’re contemplating simply getting up and, once again - _bolting_.  
   
“Surely you can do more,” he adds. “You could always try the eyebrow. Everyone _adores_ the eyebrow.”  
   
Chara blinks, slow and deliberate. They’re teetering, balanced on a precipice he’s not quite sure how to pull them back from. Whatever he says next is liable to determine which route they take, and the weight of the choice feels far more grandiose, far more critical, than it has any right to be. Should he fail, what would the harm be, truly?  
   
For reasons beyond his comprehension, the importance of that choice weighs in him, heavily. Chara’s fingertips work into the fabric of their sweater, digging into the spaces between the threads, stretching the fabric, distending it, and a muscle in their jaw clenches, tightening in their throat.  
   
Mettaton leans back in the chair opposite, crossing one leg primly as he demonstrates, smoothly, as if his chassis does not feel as though it is about to ache and burst with the pressure of the next few moments.  
   
It would not be a slamming door, certainly; there would be, there would have to be, some manner of recovery from it. Would he lose any and all chances in the future, to attempt to connect as Frisk has so desperately beseeched of him? The child’s discomfort is palpable, their natural act distorting as their fingers twist and tear, as they fidget and try to hold themself in stillness, without success. They do not look at him, as though regarding him, at the moment, is something painful.  
   
He arches one eyebrow, the visible one, in a delicate glide of motion, cool and controlled. Chara’s gaze flicks to him and away again, and then - back again. Too late, the mantle of self-possessed blankness drops cleanly across their features, ironing away the strain in their jaw, the lines around their mouth, attempting to communicate a lack of interest where interest does, assuredly, exist. Because, in the end, of course, you can’t play a player.  
   
Mettaton smiles faintly.  
   
“The perfect combination of doubt and disdain,” he says with the artful supination of a hand, cupping a palm in a dramatic flourish. “The _eyebrow.”_  
   
A crease has appeared between the child’s brows, as though they cannot quite muster an answer to that. Their lips part, briefly, before snapping shut once more. They elect, again, to cede into silence.  
   
“The trick is practice, of course.” He continues as though he were invited to continue, recognizing full well that he’s not about to receive any verbal confirmation from the child themself. Far be they from the sort that would affirm interest in anything as mundane as an actor’s favored intimidation tactic, useful as it may be.  
   
“Practice,” says Chara, the word a dry, skeptical pull. Practically a tonal copy of the very thing he’s attempting to demonstrate. How unwittingly _very_ on the nose of them.  
   
“Of _course_ , dear. It takes a great deal of control to lift the _one_ , as opposed to both.” He’s at a small advantage here, naturally, with the way the locks of metallic hair coil down one side of his face in a perfectly sculpted curl. One would never really _know_ if he was lifting one eyebrow or both, or if he was winking or merely blinking, slow and pronounced. Yet that ambiguity, too, can serve to an actor’s advantage, can it not?  
   
One word, though he cannot possibly pick out which, must have been the magical threshold, the one that netted their interest more thoroughly than the rest. As if to demonstrate, Chara’s eyebrows lift, and then immediately scrunch down, darkening their features in a scowl. Their obvious discomfort is as solemn an indicator as any that they’ve just attempted to prove the movement’s ease and failed miserably.  
   
“Almost!” Mettaton trills, even if they’ve not got it at all. Chara’s shoulders hitch to their ears, but they no longer seem about ready to dash off in the opposite direction at the smallest infraction.  
   
Good.  
   
“A mirror is always useful, of course.” He reaches up to sweep at his hair, delicately, before placing one hand over the right side of his face. “It’s best to use your hands, to start with, before your muscles start to remember.”  
   
Chara opens their mouth, eyeing him suspiciously - perhaps to ask what a robot would know of muscles - but Mettaton plows decidedly onward.  
   
“As long as you keep it up each day, soon you’ll have it down _perfectly_ , I daresay. Perfect for casual dismissal, should that be your intention!”  
   
Chara continues to stare at him.  
   
The silence that creeps past reaches the point where it should be deeply uncomfortable, and his smile starts to feel a tad fixed, until at long last Chara stands, smoothing the creases in their shorts, tilting their chin faintly in acknowledgment without breaking eye contact with the robot in question.  
   
“Thank you for the lesson, sir.”  
   
And there it is, that overly formal, clipped dismissal, almost as eloquent as any eyebrow. The child backs away before turning and vanishing through the living room doorway in a rapid flare of hair, loathe as they seem to be to turn their back on anyone, no matter how recumbent and non-confrontational they may appear.  
   
When the silence pervades for five minutes, ten, Mettaton finally utters a long, weary sigh.  
   
A month later, he catches them arching one eyebrow in a perfect demonstration of the gesture, a look that has Sans looking very briefly, very vaguely unsettled until he slips out of the room. There’s a faint pinching to the corners of their mouth, not unlike the perpetual crinkles that pock at Frisk’s cheeks, the lines of smiles that the monsters don’t see nearly enough, and they briefly meet his eyes.  
   
He flashes them a dazzling smile, as is his predilection.  
   
He expects the smile to slip away as smoothly as oiled silk, or perhaps to sharpen into its typical weapon. He anticipates the leveling of that blade upon him, for witnessing what must have been a very private matter.  
   
But when the child smiles without that mask firmly in place, a genuine if practically infinitesimal pulling of one side of their mouth, it really does suit the shape of their face quite well; far more warming than their typical arctic exterior would suggest.  
   
Not that Mettaton is the sort to second-guess his endeavors - ever, actually - but the look to their face is too gratifying to deny.  
   
As if he could, or would, deny them that.  
   
Frisk, of course, looks positively elated.  
   
But it is the gentle, earnest lift to the perpetual shadow in the other child’s face that stays with him.


End file.
